title: Opportunities for improving legislative public health policy in Rhode Island through evidence-based education.
abstract: The Rhode Island General Assembly considers nearly 3000 bills yearly--spanning the entire range of issues related to state government and legislative policy. This review analyzes the modest number of 40 "health-related" bills introduced during the 2009 session. It is often not clear to what extent these proposals consistently received analysis by both informed and independent organizations or experts regarding their "evidence-based" foundations. Only 25 of these bills received a committee hearing, and eventually become law. Hence, there may be a reasonable opportunity for expert, non-partisan organizations to provide the General Assembly with information related to proposed legislation on a routine or "as requested" basis. This study provides a systematic analysis of this degree of effort based on data regarding health- related legislation proposed during the 2009 session of the RI General Assembly.
authors.affiliation: MS Candidate, International Health Policy and Management, Heller School, Brandeis University.
authors.forename: Moise
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bourdeau
authors.forename: Ronald
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Winter
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marshall
mesh_terms: D004493:Education; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006291:Health Policy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D011634:Public Health / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D012237:Rhode Island
keywords: Education; Legislative Policy; Public Health